


Huddle

by peregrineroad



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canonical Child Abuse, Child Soldiers, Gen, Pre-Movie: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Ravager Politics, kid yondu and kid rocket have adventures
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-03-24 06:49:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13805754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peregrineroad/pseuds/peregrineroad
Summary: Battle Slave 127 and Subject 89P13 are very lost indeed. For now, though, they're lost together.





	1. Chapter 1

 

“Oh no,” said Peter. “No way. That would be...” – he paused as if assailed by angry visions – “a total disaster.”

“It’ll be fun, you big wet blanket,” said Rocket, scattering power supplies as he tinkered with the gun in his lap. “Yer just getting too used to havin’ the _little_ people suck up to you, and now you don’t want ‘em coming after us with any _big_ guns-”

“Well, yes! Yeah! Are you kidding, Rocket? This is five star service, of course I prefer it to getting shot! Free food! Silk sheets! They introduce us as the ‘Heroes of Xandar’ whenever we walk into a room! I’m a couple days away from getting my own theme song here, why would you wanna screw that up?”

“ _Da-da-da-da-dow, Star-snacks_ ~! There you go; don’t gotta stick around for that. I get royalties.”

“And everything else?” Peter put his hands on his hips.

“They’re gonna stop as soon as the shine wears off, Quill, and I don’t care how much you polish your entitlements in yer spare time, we both know it goes fast. Better to get out while the gettin’s good, and make a buck from a unique opportunity while we’re at it.”

Peter sat back and sighed heavily. “Hey, I for one am an endless fount of shiny, and the getting’s _great_. Also, I’m the leader here, and I’m telling you we aren’t gonna rob that place of _any_ of their precious war trophies. The Kree purists already hate us, so let’s not bring religion into it.”

“They’ve been fine leaving their temple junk in an _enemy system_ in the _Xandarian Empire_ for forty cycles,” Rocket argued. “The boonies, even. It’s one planet over, c’mon. Quickest job we’ll ever pull.”

“They’ve only been okay with it because no-one’s risked using it! But we’re the ‘Heroes of Xandar’, in case you haven’t been listening, so if we start running around selling their holy items on the black market, there’s gonna be a problem! Do you wanna start another war?”

“I wanna get paid!”

“Fine! Then I’ll find us a job. Just give it a few more days; Gamora likes it here.”

Rocket clambered to his feet and turned away. “Fine yourself. Just make sure it’s a good one this time. I ain’t doing no more supply runs for Moomba sanctuaries.”

“That job kept your fluffy tail supplied with bomb parts for a month,” Peter muttered, stuffing some of the complementary food in his mouth. Rocket flipped him off and huffed away.

“What’s his problem, anyway?” Peter mumbled, chewing. He kicked at some of the detritus on the floor. “Ow!”

*

Yondu scanned the lists of available jobs again, drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair. It was a big galaxy full of dirty business, and while the other factions maybe skimmed the best shit off the top, they couldn’t suck up everything. There was plenty of mid-tier villainy which would pay.

Thing was calibrating the job to the team mood. They needed a win right now. Good money, of course, but somethin’ else too – somethin’ renegade, to prove ‘em worthy of the name Ravager after going to war for no pay-off beyond Yondu’s pride in Quill. On the other hand, that battle had cost a lot of men. Losing more manpower, even on a big score, would be dangerous.

He paused, index finger hovering over one of the options. It was a hell of a coincidence, but this one might fit the bill. So to speak. He opened the details and rubbed at his stubble thoughtfully until his attention was half diverted by Oblo inching into the room behind him. Yondu beckoned him over and raised his eyebrows without looking away from the screen.

“Raiding a Kree temple, boss?” Oblo said, laughing nervously. Yondu finally looked up, frowning, and the man attempted to come to attention, which he seemed to think meant standing on tiptoe and quivering.

“Yeah, looks like.”  He folded his arms. “So what’ve you got?”

“Well, Cap’n, I been keepin’ my ears out like you said, an’ you was right – they’s been talking, an’ they’s been listening. And the one what talks most and listens least is Taserface.”

“Taserface, huh?” Yondu said thoughtfully, and then laughed.

“Yes, sir!”

“You worried about this, Oblo?” Yondu asked. The crewman nodded.

“He’s been putting about that you’ve _gone soft_ , sir. That you let a traitor con true Ravagers into dying on Xandar for nothin’, and you ain’t done nothin’ to make it up. That you’re not fit to lead no more. That you’re a cowardly dotard who’s destroying the Ravager name! That’s what he’s saying, sir!”

“...good reportin’,” Yondu said. “And what’s the crew saying back?”

“ _I_ think you’re a great Capt’n, Capt’n! ‘N so does Tullk, an’ Kraglin, and ZZeenar, and Jaspath, an’ -”

“’N’ more generally, maybe?” Yondu glanced again at the screens.

“Crew don’t know what to think, sir. Gettin’ kinda...edgy.”

“Alright. Figure a leisure-stop’ll after this next job’ll take some of that edge off.  Now, when they talk, you talk back.” Yondu took a breath and locked eyes with Oblo, who rose on his toes again apparently without conscious thought. “Only _one_ reason that boy’s still alive, and it’s this: I know him. Right now, he’s in big with the Nova Corps; he’s got it in his head that he’s a hero. But our Mister Quill, I raised him up myself, and that means he’s a thief in his heart.” Yondu thumped his chest twice.

“A thief...heart,” Oblo echoed, nodding and thumping along. Yondu suppressed a sigh, and continued.

 “In the end, he’s gonna turn to what he knows. Either he comes crawling back to us, bringing his shiny new contacts in Xandar, one of the _richest empires in the galaxy_ , along with ‘im... or he uses up all that goodwill stealing for himself, and then he ain’t protected no more. That’s when we make our move. The second he ain’t useful, he’s done, and that’s the way it’s always been with me an’ him. You tell ‘em that. As for Taserface...” he shook his head. “...don’t worry about him none.”

 “He’s pretty strong, Cap’n, and they listen to him,” Oblo said, after mouthing his way through to the end of the speech.

“Yeah, and he’s never laid a trap he ain’t straight off stepped in.” Yondu laughed again. Taserface. Couldn’t plan, negotiate or allocate resources, so of course he was who Yondu’s crew gravitated towards when they was in a snit. Damn. If- _when_ Quill came back, or at least made some overtures, maybe some of that Xandar goodwill would make recruiting a slightly more rarefied strata of scumbag easier.

He ignored the pang in his chest that thought got him, and nodded Oblo off. Maybe he should have Kraglin pass all that defence about; the first mate was well grounded in the crew and practiced at turning ‘em, but he suspected Kraglin would lack conviction. He’d known Yondu too long and watched him too closely. He knew well enough what Yondu really felt for Quill. Oblo was loyal and not too bright, and he wasn’t seen as one of Yondu’s particular favourites like Tullk or Kraglin. He’d do to pass the message on, so long as he remembered the salient points of it. Looked eager to please, anyhow.

Well. It was a tight spot, but he’d been in tighter, _and_ still turned a profit. Taserface wouldn’t do anything Yondu wouldn’t see coming, and wouldn’t be able to manage his supporters long. Anyone throwin’ in behind him would get bit by his incompetence soon enough, even if they was too incompetent themselves to recognise its nature. Maybe they’d get this shit out of their system for a while, and he wouldn’t have to execute many of them. He needed every one of them, really. And, well. Mostly they were assholes, but they were _his_.

He sighed again. It had always been hard, hangin’ on to an exile crew, but he thought maybe it was getting harder these days. Could be Quill was well out of it.

If any of the crew ever found out that, on the tail of that thought, he went to listen to that Zune thing he was hanging on to, there’d be no turning back the tide of mutiny which in his own thief’s heart he knew was coming.

*

“I am Groot?”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it, buddy.” Rocket held the bowl of water still while Groot jumped around in it, a fresh spray of droplets launching into the air every few seconds. “Listen, if you get the night munchies tonight try taking it to Gamora just this once, okay? I’m gonna be working on something, it’s a secret – yeah, I’ll tell ya, but once it’s done. Anyway, I gotta concentrate, so – okay, fine, get yer cuddling in now. Don’t tell anyone about this, right, I got a reputation to uphold.”

“I am Groot.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Rocket leaned back as Groot shook himself. “Gross.”

“I am Groot!”

“What, really? You too? Urgh, I don’t get why everyone likes this place so much. Sure, it’s fancy, but there’re way too many people staring at us, why don’t we just steal the sheets ‘n’ towels and go?”

“’M Groot.”

“Yeah, okay, food too. You don’t even eat that stuff.”

“I _am_ Groot!”

“Pft. It smells okay, I guess. Nothing on a good Larian Fry Up, though.”

Groot sighed wistfully, which was close enough to agreement for Rocket.

“Damn right, I’m right. Nothing this place offers us that we couldn’t _buy_ if Quill would come up with some decent jobs. He’s asking for...” he paused, jaw working, then shrugged exaggeratedly. “Whatever. Like I said. Don’t worry about it for now.”

“I am Groot.” The little tree toddled back to his side and leaned his head on his arm. This time his sigh was almost a coo. Absently, Rocket ran two fingers over Groot’s back.

“Yeah. Nothing to worry about,” he said.

*

“Oblo said we’re raiding a Kree temple?” Kraglin hovered over his shoulder, clearly trying to translate concern into diplomatic terms, and only managing a malingering silence. Yondu snorted.

“That ain’t what I told him to spread about.” He shook his head. “Settle down. Been abandoned forty-seven cycles. All that’s left are the traps, n’ as a point of fact, I got a lead on disabling them.”

“Oh.” Kraglin’s shoulders relaxed. “Clean run, then, y’ think?”

Yondu never called clean-runs. “Might go to our advantage,” he said, instead.

There was the other thing. Lately he’d been in the habit of checking a little tracker which he might, in a fit of absent-mindedness, have misplaced on the ship of a certain errant half-terran – in the music player, where he knew it would survive refurbishments. He might also have taken to scheduling jobs as far away as possible from the little blip which represented trouble. But this time, the blip was alarmingly close to the target. Quill had disabled the parts of his m-ship which identified it as a Ravager vessel to other nearby Ravager crafts, so they would probably have to actually run the brat over for the crew to know he was there, but still. Cutting things a bit close.

He thought about what Oblo might have spread about this job already, and how changing plans would look if he’d never actually announced the first one. But he knew on some level he’d been expecting this. He’d allowed it to happen. He’d have to take the risk sooner or later, because no matter how big the galaxy, Quill was likely to try and loom large within it. He always had. And now he had a team to back up his exaggerated moniker.

Kraglin was nodding. “How big’s the score?”

“Big enough.” Yondu said. “Kree’ve let it sit this long, but once it’s back in play they’ll take notice. Could be an auction’ll shake their pockets open all the way, ‘n we get a big cut of the final price for recovery.”

“That’d be nice,” Kraglin said, appreciative. He had the look most Ravagers got when they were thinking of how they’d spend their take. Yondu chuckled.  Alright. So it was this.

*

Sneaking away from the others had been easy. He’d left his comm on, sure that once they’d found out he was missing they’d want to start the search by yelling about teamwork and honesty and not provoking interplanetary war - other hippy-dippy shit like that - but so far there hadn’t been a peep. He switched it to mute now and hopped out of the small spacecraft he’d nicked from off one of the local hicks on freakin’ paradise planet. That little repurposing of resources had probably upped the crime rate by 100%. Disgusting.

This place was considerably more dingy, but not really to his taste either. The sky was a uniform storm-grey, and the rock of the surface formed towering blue columns in every direction, like a vast wintery forest of petrified trees. There were cities on this planet, but none of them were within a thousand miles of him, and his headlight cast a pale and lonely strip of yellow on the abandoned path to the temple.

Something was booming out there among the towers, under the howl of the wind. The sound started a long way off and approached until seemed to be coming from the inside of Rocket’s head, only to fade to silence and begin again at its furthest distance. His fur was bristling as though there was a charge of electricity in the air, and it made his joints ache.

“Screw _this_ ,” Rocket said, and trotted on over to the temple steps. They were made far too large even for Kree-sized legs, and he had to use his aero-rig to save a few hours’ climb. At the top he took a moment to look around. It wasn’t any more appealing from up here. His headlight didn’t cut far into the gloom, but he could see the long shadows stretching from the bases of the towers, layering over each other until the dark was too thick to register differences of shade. He blew out a breath and turned back to the temple entrance.

It was a typical piece of Kree architecture, meant to look both sophisticated and imposing, but age and abandonment had eroded away the evidence of an artisan’s hand and now it loomed like a nightmare. He curled his lip at the cavernous opening, and reached into his satchel for his scanner. A quick analysis flagged a pressure-trigger in front of the door, so he boosted himself over it on the aero-rig, and started flying slowly down the corridor, scanner aloft. The tech wasn’t bad for its age, and he had to stop a few times and hack into the security systems to get past certain traps. There didn’t seem to be a centralised control, so he had to treat each mechanism on its own. It was slow, but for a job like this, Rocket could be patient.

He hummed to himself softly, and wondered if they’d noticed he was gone yet.

*

“Someone in there already,” Kraglin said. Yondu shot him a sideways look at this statement of the obvious, then frowned into the temple opening. It looked the same, although he’d been a lot smaller when he’d last seen it.

“Whoever it is, they haven’t disabled all the traps,” he said, and clicked his tongue. Trying to hurry this lot into a booby-trapped temple was asking for the whole damn thing to come down on their heads. “Alright. Tullk, Kraglin, Taserface, y’all are with me. The rest of you stay out here and watch for this asshole tryin’ to make a break for it. There’s a smaller exit at the left foot of the stairs, so some of you go guard that. Once I’ve cleared the place we’ll signal you to come.”

Taserface drew himself up and squared his shoulders. Yondu wondered idly if the man expected him to try and assassinate him while they were separated from his fanclub. He didn’t intend it, as it happened, although he sure did intend for Taserface to consider the possibility.

“Worried ‘bout something, Taserface?” he asked loudly. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care’a you.” That got a few titters and jeers out of the crowd. The big man snarled.

“I ain’t scared of some old relic,” he growled. Yondu raised his eyebrows. Pretty good wordplay for someone with nothing but a lunar-gnat storm between his ears.

“That’s the spirit. Go right ahead, then!” he said, grinning, and watched as Taserface marched right on to the weight-plate sitting just outside the door. There was a grinding noise and the whole thing depressed about five foot, dropping his aspiring rival chest-deep into the ground and sending him staggering. A mechanical whine signalled a dozen Kree-made cluster-laserblasters rising out of the ground, encircling him.

Taserface reacted fast, raising his guns and firing, but he was slower than the trap and slower than Yondu, who whistled sharply. His arrow wheeled around the inside of the depression, knocking the gunheads from their alcoves with a series of sparks and pops, then it spun in front of Taserface to slam home between his feet, disabling the weapon there that the jackass had failed to notice. Taserface had shot two of the lasers himself, almost taking out some of the crew’s ankles in the process, but he’d have been done if Yondu had so chosen, and everyone there knew it.

The crew whooped and laughed and glanced nervously down at their ankles. Yondu let the arrow rise gently out of the hole, still running a lazy circle around Taserface.

“Careful, there, boy,” he said, stepping up to the edge and extending his hand. “Looks like you still got some things to learn.”

Taserface snarled and heaved himself back up again on the other side. Yondu shrugged and whistled the arrow back into his empty hand.

“Don’t worry,” he said, tucking it back into its holster. “I’ll see you’re alive to learn ‘em. Stay behind me.”

He kicked the entry code into the wall by the weight-plate and walked calmly over it. Behind him, he could hear Tullk’s suppressed snickering, and Taserface’s heavy footfalls. Probably wouldn’t be as easy to remember the rest of the codes, but at least he didn’t think they’d have changed any of ‘em. Temple was old and each system was discrete, which had made updating security a huge pain in the ass, and it had always been more of a showpiece than a strategically significant location anyway.

He wondered who the hell had beat them to it. Must have seen the job listing but not actually replied to it. A Kree agent?

Well, it didn’t matter. This one would be going to the Ravagers, whoever it was waiting for them in the centre of the temple.

*

Rocket whistled softly to himself as he looked around the shelves. The vault wasn’t as full of loot as he’d been hoping, but what was there was suitably esoteric. Some of this stuff - he couldn’t tell what it was supposed to do even after a close examination. And since he was a truly incredible techno genius...

“This better not be junk,” he said, poking at the wiring of the one in his hand. Nonetheless, he shoved it into his bag and moved on to the next item. He was so absorbed in his work - and the smell of metal, old dust and older blood was so strong - that he didn’t pick up on the approaching Ravagers until they were in the tunnel right outside the vault.

When the new smell finally caught his attention, it was scorched leather, rank sweat, and gunmetal.

“Shit,” he said. He hurriedly reassembled the trap he’d reduced to scrap when he came through, adding an extra explosive touch from his bag, then unslung his largest gun from over his shoulder and aimed it at the door. It jumped a little in his hands when he heard the long, trilling whistle.

“Shit,” he said again, and then the arrow burst through the wall, knocked out the traps’ trigger without springing it, and came to a humming stop an inch in front of his nose.

“Well, hello there, rat,” said a drawling voice, and Quill’s Ravager boss sauntered into the room, grinning at him. “You got a good haul?”

“Not really,” Rocket said, tossing the dohickey over his shoulder and shrugging. “I was expecting something fancier from those Kree assholes.”

There were three others standing behind Yondu. Rocket vaguely recognised the first mate from the war over Xandar, but the other two he didn’t know. One was big and ugly and seemed unpleasantly happy to see him. The other was older and stone-faced.

“They moved most of the good stuff away before Xandar took this place,” the Ravager captain said meditatively, circling him. “What’s left is mostly prototypes for flashy shit what wouldn’t work well on a large scale, n’ a few symbolic items. Things you need good contacts to move, y’know. Contacts who probably ain’t ever gonna work with a Guardian of the Galaxy, ‘coz they’ll think it’s a Nova Corps set-up. And even if it’s not...could start a war like that, right? The Xandar-Kree war was getting to be more trouble than profit towards the end there.”

He smiled almost happily. Rocket’s claw twitched on the trigger. Whatever. He’d be able to modify all this stuff enough to sell it on just fine. Quill was full of shit and so was his boss.

“But that’s okay, ‘coz the payoff isn’t whatcha really after, is it?” Yondu stopped, staring intently at Rocket, who snarled back on principle.

“Nah, you’re just here to betray your team, ain’t that right?”

Rocket flinched. “This has got nothing to do with them.”

“Sure it hasn’t. Not like you running out to do dangerous jobs behind their backs is ever gonna bite them.” The dim light winked off the silver in Yondu’s pirate grin, and Rocket recognised his faux-friendly attitude from a thousand negotiations, but there was something hard and no-nonsense in the blue bastard’s eyes which made Rocket feel like he’d been missed a step on a ladder and was about to land hard on his tail.

“How about we make a deal?” the Ravager continued. “You’re outnumbered, you’re surrounded, you got no way to move the loot. Hand it over an’ we’ll let you go back to your friends and pretend you never tried to fuck ‘em over.”

“Why don’t we just kill him?!” asked the huge Ravager from over the Captain’s shoulder. “Or take him hostage and kill the rest of the traitors when they come for him?”

“You’re sure preoccupied with traitors for someone questioning the Captain’s orders, Tasie,” said the other one Rocket didn’t know. He kept his eyes on Yondu.

“How about I shoot all of you losers full of holes instead,” he said slowly, “and take home _my_ fancy new tech? Sound good to you, Ravager?”

“Eh, more unlikely than anything else,” Yondu said, shrugging. “Like I said, you’re surrounded. Also....”

And there it came; the whistle. Rocket had been prepared to shoot Yondu the moment his lips pursed, damn the consequences, but it was dark and the bastard was being so talkative that the transition between speech and summons was easily missed. Before his finger had tightened on the trigger, the arrow had ripped down the length of his gun’s barrel, sent the power cell arcing over his head, and returned to its starting point an inch in front of his nose. Yondu laughed.

“Deal, boy?” he asked.

Rocket’s hackles rose and he couldn’t suppress the growl rumbling low in his chest, but there was a kind of appeal to the offer on the table –that being literally nothing, which was probably the limit of Ravager generosity. He’d get the chance to fly back with his tail between his legs and pretend he’d been off sightseeing. He’d go back to normal. After all, he didn’t want to quit the Guardians, not _really_ , or he’d have taken Groot with him, wouldn’t he? Wouldn’t he?

Anyway, the point was, Yondu didn’t know shit but the job was probably a bust either way. On the other hand, Yondu didn’t know shit, and he was running his mouth off like he had Rocket all figured out. That pissed him off.

That really pissed him off.

Screw it.

“Alright, you blue idiot,” he said, and saw something like a minute relaxation in Yondu’s face. Ha. “if you know me so well, what am I gonna do next?”

Yondu’s eyes widened as though he really could guess, but Rocket was already moving. He slung the satchel full of accumulated Kree devices hard into the defeated trap at the doorway, snapping the sparkwire he’d attached to his little explosive and setting it off. The same instant he heard Yondu whistle and squeezed his eyes shut, the backs of his eyelids went white, and a huge force slammed him backwards.

He felt himself hit the wall behind him, and black replaced the flare of white. The noise of the explosion seemed to ring long after it should have been over. He could feel himself spiralling into the sound. 

Then, at last, silence.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

89P13. It woke up. The scientists’ knives were digging in its brain.

The scientists told it: _Now look up. Now look down. Now left. Now right._

_Count backwards from one thousand._

                          1000. 999.

Pictures moved on a screen. The globules of light there shivered with each jab of hurt in 89P13's head.

_Stay still._

                           829.

It had no choice but to stay still. There were straps holding its head in the position they wanted its head to be in. It had to stay still. It wished the things they told it made sense.

The lights drifted and pulsed and hurt. It counted and counted. Where did the numbers go?

                          9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.

_Again._

After a long time, they told it: _Alright, good enough._

They sent the dark drugs down the tube in its arm. It faded. It was grateful to go.

 

* * *

 

89P13 woke up. The dark drugs were still in him. They slowed everything down and they took pain out to a nearby somewhere else, but he hated them. They didn’t let him think right. They made the world all slick and quivery and they tilted it sideways. He couldn’t help the whimper of distress, but it was allowed. No one was listening.

He was cold and he ached. Things twitched under his skin when he moved. Thoughts ticked at the back of his head. They were cold and aching too.

Who was this body? What was this brain?

He didn’t know. Every time he woke up, he didn’t know all over again.

_They_ kept telling each other they were making something unprecedented.

He knew what that meant: something new: without previous iteration. But he had been many previous iterations. He wished the things they told each other made sense.

There was something else new in the cage next to his. It stunk, like blood and like the acid that came out when you had to vomit, and it was lying against the bars so that some of its fur was bristling into his space.

“Hey,” 89P13 whispered.

The stranger turned its head. Its eyes were very big and they stared. It didn’t move anything else and it didn’t make noise.

“Go away,” 89P13 whispered. He waggled his claws at it. It tracked his hand, sniffing at the bars, and then its head dropped down again. As he focused on it, he saw the long implant twisting down its spine, and the blood dripping onto the floor.

It wasn’t gonna live. 89P13 knew what _that_ looked like, and he knew what it smelled like, too. He kicked the side of the cage to move it away, and he saw the weak jerking of its legs and the dull eyes rolling. And he knew that its death was in there with it.

He curled up with his back to it and tried to sleep again.

The smell of blood followed him down. The drugs made it so he couldn’t tell where it was coming from, so it was just everywhere, instead.

 

* * *

 

 

89P13 woke up. He kept himself as still as he could. If he didn’t move, maybe he could hold on to the dreams of somewhere-else -- which were just warmth; light; no-pain.  Things he only got when his head was only half working.

It was too late. It was cold and dark and the pain was right there with him. He was awake.

There was a new subject in the cage opposite his. It was staring. Even though they kept the cages dark for half of the day cycle, the glitter of its eyes was obvious. It looked more alive than they usually did. Probably more alive than he was.

Unlucky, then.

He knew never to look the scientists in the eye. Just the idea made him shiver. So now it was something he thought about more and more. What would they do?

This wasn’t the same, but still, he pulled himself up and stared back.

“What?” he whispered eventually.

“what” the other test subject sighed.

89P13 jumped and gripped the bars. They never talked! _He_ was the one who talked; that was why the scientists were always testing him and looking in his brain. He was the experiment which had worked. The others could walk upright, and some of them could fight, but he was the only one who could speak.

“what” the other test subject said again, a little louder.

“They made you talk,” he murmured.

“they made you talk”

He flinched. There was a sing-song lilt to the other subject’s voice, and it pronounced the words strangely, like they were pebbles it was spitting out.

“Stop it.”

“stop it”

He slumped forward against the bars.

“You’re just repeating,” he said softly. “You’re not real. You’re not like me.”

“-just repeating you’re not real you’re not like me.”

He put his hands over his ears and shut his eyes.

 

* * *

 

 

89P13 woke up. He was somewhere else.

 

* * *

 

 

“That fuzzy little bastard!” Peter said, throwing one of Rocket’s unused pillows into the wall and glaring at it as it slid gelatinously onto the floor. “He really couldn’t give me _one day_ to fix things.”

“He has no respect for your leadership,” Drax agreed. “Perhaps because of your immaturity and lack of gravitas.”

Peter inhaled slowly through his nose, trying to count to ten. Drax was looking at him attentively, apparently very interested in how he would respond. On six, the air exploded out of his mouth and into the sort of laundry-list anger that he recognised as not wanting to hear himself think.

 “Seriously? Okay, you know what, let’s go ahead –

“Let’s not,” said Gamora, entering the room behind him and shoving past both him and Drax to where Groot was sitting mournfully on the still-made bed. That only made it worse.

“-let’s all talk about my failings as a leader. How about we start-”

(“Did he tell you where he was planning to go?” Gamora asked Groot, on the edge of his attention.

“I am Groot...” Groot drooped, then looked up at her with huge eyes. “I am Groot.”

Damnit, Rocket.)

“- with how I put together a crew of stubborn _maniacs_ who would drive frickin’ Ghandi to chewing off faces, and then we _saved the galaxy_? Together? How about we all pile on me for that?”

Drax’s gaze turned thoughtful. He looked towards Gamora and Groot, then back at Peter, as if he were trying to weigh them all individually in his head.

“As an indictment of your leadership, you wish us to stand on top of you? Is this a bonding ritual? There may not be time for that now."

“Yes!” Peter threw his hands up in the air. “No! We should absolutely stop right now to bond, Drax. You know what's bonding on my planet? Punching Draxes on the nose.”

"You are taking your anger out on me," Drax said, sounding a little surprised. "If there is a problem you should say so directly, Quill."

"There are a ton of problems!"

“Enough.” Gamora stood up again. “None of this is helping. Are we sure Rocket didn’t just go to find a bar and stay in it for the night?”

“Maybe,” Peter conceded, even though he didn’t believe it for a moment. That wouldn’t be making things as impossible as possible, so it was way too much to hope for. Ghandi. Faces. “But what’s the odds he hasn’t pissed off everyone in there and then set the place on fire instead? Anyway, he isn’t answering his comm.”

“But he did take it with him,” Drax said. “Indicating that he does not wish to close all lines of communication forever.”

“Actually a good point,” Gamora said. Peter huffed, but his shoulders relaxed a little.

“I didn’t say he’d run off _forever_ ,” he said. “Groot’s still here. All I’m saying is, he’s definitely doing something stupid, and he’s definitely going to get us – **Groot-don’t-listen** \- all killed.”

Groot sniffled. Gamora picked him up, body-language gentle even as she directed a sizzling glare towards Peter, who shuffled. He said not to listen! Also, this was Rocket’s fault, not his, damnit.

 “He better not have gone to the temple,” he said.

He flicked the comm again, absently.

“What temple?” Drax asked.

The comm crackled on. But it wasn’t Rocket’s voice which emerged from it.

“Are you there, Quill, you traitorous bastard?” it said. Peter almost threw it through the ceiling.

“Frickin’ Taserface?”

Drax looked fascinated.

“A taser in his--”

“No!” Peter pulled the comm up to his mouth. “Where’d you get this frequency?”

“Took it off a rat,” Taserface said smugly. Peter’s heart did a horrible frenetic little jig in his chest. “A dead rat.”

“I...am Groot?”

“He’s a liar,” Peter said immediately, watching water pool in Groot’s eyes. “You’re a liar,” he added into the comm.

Taserface laughed. Peter almost crushed the comm as he turned it off.

Everyone was staring at him, frozen.

“Hold on,” he said, mainly to Groot, and snatched up a data-pad. “I’m gonna call Yondu. If the Ravagers had got hold of Rocket, he’d want to use him to make a deal or something...anyway, he would contact me. Taserface is just some asshole with a stupid name; he doesn’t make decisions.”

He sent the message.

He watched the connection wait to go through on the screen. And wait. And wait.

He turned the comm back on almost absently. Gamora made a soft noise in the back of her throat and moved to stand alongside him.

The two of them stared down at the data pad.

After a long time, the connection failed.

 

* * *

 

 

89P13 had always been able to read the world through his nose. He’d always known where he was. Since his life had been lived in four rooms and their connecting corridors, it hadn’t ever even been hard.

He didn’t know where he was now, only that it was new and strange, and it smelled of burnt dust and leather and hot metal, and the sweat of the being that was crouched over him with one hand tight on the back of his neck.

His handler was young and almost as scared as he was, but their hand was hard and calloused. When he started to move, they leaned close to his ear and made rough soothing noises. He got the message quickly: stay quiet.

It was dark. They were hidden under something, and it crinkled a little when either of them moved, so he copied the frozen tension of the body above his. There were three other people in the room. They were talking, but it was hard to make out what they were saying – only the shocked, angry tones of their voices.

He could feel the stranger breathing shallowly behind him. It made him want to cringe away, but he stayed still. It was always most important to stay still whenever he had that useless urge to escape, or _they’d_ know.

Stupid. Useless feelings.

The voices were getting louder. His ears buzzed like there were shock probes in them, but he could make out a little of what they were saying.

“-- dead.” This voice was gruff, but there was triumph in there, and a rising excitement that prickled the fur along 89P13’s spine so much that he shivered. _Stay still_ , he told himself. _Idiot_. The hand on his neck gripped harder, as though in agreements.

The voice was moving and the buzzing in his ears kept rising up over it.“--killed hi - - nd itself.”

Killed? There was no _smell_ of death, though. The burning was leather and dust, not meat.

“Kraglin...” Another, older voice said. “We -- things back -- ship.”

“First, we finish the job!” That was louder than the buzzing, although it made it worse. Loud And Excited strode around the room, clattering. 89P13 tensed as heavy boots came close. He smelled something raw. He had to get away. He had to get away. The person holding him was doing it like a beginner; fingers dug in the loose scruff at the back of his neck. He could twist around and...

He _could_...

Lesser offenses had been punished with blows or shocks or the drugs which made his insides bleed, but this being didn’t seem to have any of those options: it stiffened but didn’t even make any sound as his teeth dug in.

It was the first time he’d bitten a humanoid hand since he was the Before Animal - the thing which had bit and struggled and screamed and hadn’t cared about being ascended to a higher purpose. The thing that hadn’t ever wanted to become him.

89P13 started to grind his teeth. His mouth was filling with the taste of blood. He knew the punishment had to be coming, but every moment it delayed felt like ...something he’d never felt before. Like the scientists floating away from him, just as they did when the dark drugs were used, but he was still awake...

The hand still on his scruff tightened as the being bent down to his ear. The whisper was so soft it barely stirred his fur.

“If they find us, they’ll kill us.”

He let go.

 

* * *

 

 

“Ha,” said Taserface, as Quill disconnected the comm. “Coward.”

“We should haul ass back to the ship an’ regroup before we get to provoking more enemies,” Tullk said. “Nobody’s made you Captain, Tasie. Kraglin’s the first mate. And what Yondu said about the Guardians is still sound sense.”

“How about we see what the crew says, Tullk?” Taserface said. “We’ll see what they say about you, too.”

“Yeah, we will.” Kraglin’s voice hard hardened since his first, almost plaintive reaction to the Capt’n getting exploded. “We got what we came for. Let’s bring his things.”

Yondu had been Tullk’s friend for more than half of his life. Now there was nothing left except a pile of empty, burnt clothes and the brittle look in Kraglin’s eyes. It made you want to go out and gut a few dozen rodents, and maybe just the one loud, mutinous douchebag.

Best to hold that in, though. Hard to tell just how things would settle.  People took Kraglin’s orders, but he’d grown up in _this_ crew. Thought the code he’d been learned by them was the real thing, not just a ghost Yondu kept lending his breath to. Tullk was gonna have to have his back. Didn’t wanna lose anything else to this.

He helped Kraglin gather the leather coat up in silence. The arrow was lying there, singed but not really damaged, and there were broken pieces of the fin scattered against the furthermost wall. Taserface made impatient noises and swung his bag of loot as they piled up Yondu’s gear. As soon as they’d gathered everything he took off out the door without waiting for them. Tullk sort of hoped he would fall into another unsprung trap, but he didn’t. He made it out still in the lead.

He let Kraglin make the announcement, though. Tullk didn’t like that. Didn’t like his interjections or the way he kept on looking at Kraglin’s face. Trouble was coming. He had a bad feeling. It sat big and square in his gut and it squirmed. Went on right until they got back to their ships, and found out that one was missing, and by then it was all the way opened up into fear.

Real bad trouble. That was what it was gonna be.

 


End file.
